Past the Ninth
by Monkey on a Stick
Summary: Lirael and Sabriel are trying to defeat Hedge's brother, who can stand the ninth gate...uh-oh..
1. Default Chapter

Warning!!!!!!! Computer change may have made signs such as or ; appear in the wrong places on this page and incorrect spellings may occur. I AM AWARE OF THIS!!  
  
Past the Ninth  
  
Chapter 1 The Hooded Man  
It was hot, at the top of Cloven Crest, actually it was a record breaker. Gruda-her present name-certainly could tell. She was standing on the top of the mountain, wiping sweat from her eyes. She was getting impatient. As she made to check her right side, just in case Hedge's brother, Francis, had arrived. He had not. Gruda sighed. Business did take forever, especially when it wasn't exactly legal. Finally, at five past noon, a dark figure approached the top. "Hello, Gruda Wiscia." It said, voice as cold as ice.  
  
"Hello, Master." Gruda answered to the man, bowing.  
He was clad in a brown traveling cloak that made it impossible to see his face, a small torso, and long, dangly arms and legs made him have the look of a very badly put together jigsaw puzzle. "I have brought what you have ordered of me." She said bowing again, long brown, bangs flat on the rock-covered ground.  
"Good. I have brought what you wished in return." He gestured to the bottom of the mountain. Two Hish (as humans called them) stood there, showing their fangs to each other.  
"Thank you, Master." Gruda whispered, displaying a small, silver key on an equally small silk cushion. "You may go past the ninth now, Master, and return, but-"  
"You are welcome." He said taking the cushion, delicately, then, with a swish of his cloak, disappeared.  
"So much for a warni-" Gruda stopped dead, clutching her throat, gagging. The stench of Free Magic was in the air.  
"Traitor!" was her last word as she fell, hazel eyes blank. The Hish had disappeared as well, but a faint voice, cold. It matching the one of the cloaked man, exactly, floated in the cold northern wind. It laughed a cold laugh that was not amusing at all. "Killing gives me more pleasure than business." It hissed.  
  
Lirael, at Abhorson's House, on a bench in an oak tree in the grove, felt the Death as the wind blew in her direction. She shook her head. Something about it felt...strange, yet familiar. "Sam!" She called to her best friend making it possible to communicate with him by way of Charter marks. He had been in the garden, spelling the ground to make it richer and less dry.  
"I feel it too." He said in the bubble, wiping sweat from his forehead. "It reminds me of Hedge, sort of." He said walking inside the house holding the spell in his hand.  
Lirael frowned. "He didn't have...an apprentice?" she whispered, obviously hoping otherwise.  
"How am I supposed to know!" he snapped.  
Lirael groaned. Sam had been VERY touchy recently, since the heat wave. "Sorry." Said Sam sourly sitting on his bed. Lirael nodded as she slipped to the ground. "Bye." She muttered then spoke the mark to end the spell.  
She gathered the marks to make her cooler, then headed back to her room. Sam had been acting...odd...even before the heat. After their encounter with Hedge, to be precise. Strange...  
  
Nicolas, still in the Abhorson's house, taking hourly doses of Charter magic given by himself, Sabriel, Lirael, Sam, or Touchstone, sat on his bed. He sat reading some scientific book when he felt It. A great jolt in his stomach. Somehow, he knew someone had died-near by. "Lirael!" He called as loud as he could. Weeks earlier, he had been banned to get out of bed.  
Instead, Sabriel walked to his bedside. "So, you felt it?" she asked, plainly worried.  
"Yea. I-what made ME feel it? Inside me?" Nick had asked for a positively impossible explanation.  
"Having the Mark makes you know when someone had or is dieing." She explained. "Now, sleep." She whispered as she thought some sleeping marks. Nick opened his mouth to argue, but the mark had already taken him.  
"Lirael!" she called into a speaking spell like the one Sam had used with Lirael. "We need to go." Something, Sabriel and Lirael knew, important was about to happen. They had to find out what, that was the problem. 


	2. Chapter Two

Warning!!!!!!!

Computer change may have made signs such as or ; appear in the wrong places on this page and incorrect spellings may occur.

I AM AWARE OF THIS!! 

Chapter 2 The Fight

It was Lirael's first venture without the Disreputable Dog. It was obvious to her. At night, when she had to take a night watch every so often, she had no black, furry, companion, she did not have a close friend, (Lirael was quite shy towards the famous Abhorsen, even if Sabriel was really nice, and Sam's mother. She also was queen, another hard factor to forget.) and, most of all, the Dog had barked her marks, not wrung bells in battle. The bells had an affect on her, too.

Mogget, finding Lirael's awkwardness funny, made sure he was nearby when Lirael started. "Um...Highness Abhorsen, uh, I caught some fish." Lirael said handing over two plump fish to Sabriel one cloudless night aboard a landed Paperwing which had landed on a small island in the Ratterlin. They had left just five minutes before, and it was getting dark. Flying by Paperwing was best, and fastest, but by night, it was nearly impossible. 

"Wonderful!" Sabriel said yawning. "I'll cook it since you caught it." 

"No! Not at all! I'll see to it immediately, Highness Abhorsen." She said bowing low, scrambling for the cooking pot.

"Don't act like that! Come on, I am your half sister, after all." Sabriel said kindly, helping Goldenhand to her feet, by her golden hand.

Lirael looked up when she was standing upright. "Thanks." She muttered but you'll never be better than the Dog. She thought.

"Lirael," spoke a familiar voice in her head, "Let me go and open yourself to others. Sabriel could be a better friend than I!" the Dog said then barked a swift goodbye and was obviously gone.

Lirael beamed at Sabriel. "Could I call you Sabriel?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure! Could you seriously cook dinner, though?" Sabriel asked as she sat back down, right on top of Mogget. He unsheathed his claws as Sabriel jumped up. He hissed. She scowled.

"You mean little-urg!" she was drowned out by Mogget as he threw a fish at her.

"That was dinner!" Goldenhand exclaimed, as she began a fire in a pit she was making. Mogget just licked his fur innocently.

Lirael stomped back to the waterside where she saw a line of Deadhands on the shore, looking with rotting eyes at the water, questionably. Running back to the others (who where glaring at each other, momentarily) she explained the reason to the still glaring Sabriel why she was arming herself. "Lets go then." Sabriel groaned as she put her bells on and her sword. She yawned again. "Coming, little white bit of Evilness?" she said to the still calmly grooming himself, Mogget.

"I would rather watch. It's quite entertaining." He said as he stopped and lay himself down on the grass covered ground, looking straight at the Dead.

"Suite yourself." Lirael said shrugging her bells on.

Sabriel and Lirael walked forward to meet the Dead grimly. About fifty of them lingered on the shoreline and about twenty where fighting their way to the island, all, save a few, failed. More surged into the rapids. Both woman drew their swords. Then they each drew Saraneth and walked towards their enemy. Together they rang the Abhorson's favorite bell. All tried to resist, but only a few could.

Sabriel unsheathed her sword while Lirael silently handed Lirael her Saraneth and killed the few dead that had survived both the still sounding bell and the rushing water. She came and watched as spirits fled the rotting bodies that she destroyed. Each was armed with either a double bladed axe, or a just their swinging fists. When she finally cleared enough Dead (with Sabriel still ringing her bell and fighting with her sword one handedly) to see the plains beyond once more, she saw only the swish of a black cloak that obviously belonged to the necromancer that was directing the Dead to Sabriel and Lirael. 

"Lirael! Behind you!" Sabriel cried desperately as a circle of Dead had appeared around her. Distracted for a few precious moments, a Deadhand with a long axe threw it down on her. 

To Lirael it seemed if it had all happened in slow motion. The axe went swooping down where Sabriel's turned head was, and then a wall of white light suddenly was there, making the axe disappear and all the Dead around Sabriel. Mogget had saved Sabriel. Lirael, smiling, turned around to meet an equally happy necromancer with a blazing sword of fire upraised in his hands, striking downwards toward Lirael's head. 


End file.
